The City

Procedural, but Reproducible

The game world is a procedurally generated cyberpunk metropolis. Each session creates a new city based on a fixed seed — meaning the same session always generates the same map. No two sessions play out in the same city, but within a session everything is deterministic.

Sectors: The Strategic Unit

The city is divided into sectors — rectangular districts with their own identity, population, and economy. Sectors are the foundation for everything: your buildings stand here, your runners operate here, and here you fight for influence.

Map size depends on the session mode:

Sector Types

Every sector has a type that determines its character and atmosphere:

Sector Metrics

Every sector is recalculated daily. Four core metrics determine behavior:

Each sector also has a Property Value and a Laundering Cap (maximum laundering capacity per tick).

Dynamics: Ghettoization and Gentrification

The city lives. Your actions permanently change sectors:

Ghettoization: Violence and crime lower a sector’s Wealth. NPCs flee, property prices fall, laundering capacity drops. The sector becomes cheaper to control — but also less profitable.

Gentrification: Peace and stability raise Wealth. Better laundering options, higher income — but every visible crime generates disproportionately high heat. A wealthy neighborhood forgives nothing.

Sector Type Mutation

Under extreme conditions, a sector’s type can change. Example: A Residential Low sector whose Wealth stays above 75 for 5 days mutates into Residential High. This changes the entire dynamics of the neighborhood — new opportunities, new risks.

Third Places: Community Facilities

Some sectors have Third Places — community centers, libraries, sports grounds. You can donate to these facilities to secure Benefactor status. This brings:

• Fewer witnesses willing to testify against you
• Reduced heat buildup in the sector
• Better recruitment chances with local NPCs

The neighborhood protects those who support it.

Your Headquarters (HQ)

Every player starts with a headquarters and a front business – your HQ is a backyard office (COURTYARD), hidden behind a legitimate shop (bar, barber, etc.). The HQ is the physical starting point for all your runners.

How it works:

• Your HQ is in a courtyard – only accessible through the front building, no direct street access
• On the map, your HQ is marked with a ★ star in your accent color, directly on the courtyard tile
• You own the front building from the start (your first business) – recognizable by the colored border
• The front business is visible to other players – the HQ in the courtyard behind it is not
• Runners start their routes from the HQ. The farther the target, the longer the travel time (graph-based pathfinding)
• Later you can set up hideouts in other sectors – secondary starting points for runners

Inspect buildings: Click on a building to see details – name, prices, income, defense, synergies, and available actions (buy, rent, scout, etc.). Use Shift+Click to select multiple buildings for route planning.

Map legend: The legend at the bottom adapts automatically: when zoomed out it shows sector types or overlay colors, when zoomed in it switches to the 21 building categories (nightlife, tech, gastro, etc.) with their color codes.

Map filters: The FILTER button in the toolbar opens a sidebar panel with 7 building filters: Buyable, Rentable, Income, Extortion, Recruitment, HQ Slot, and Storage. Activate a filter and the map dims all non-matching buildings – matching ones glow in the filter color. The sector panel shows a summary (“3 Buyable, 1 HQ Slot”). Right-click a matching building to directly plan an action (e.g. “Plan Purchase”). The context menu only shows actions that match the building’s ownership status (own/neutral/rival).

Warning: If a rival takes over your front building, your HQ is cut off! Protect it with guards and alarms – or secure the neighboring buildings around your courtyard.

Buildings and Landmarks

Buildings in the city are procedurally generated. Each sector type has its own character profile that determines which buildings are preferentially placed.

Multi-Tile Buildings

Not all buildings are the same size. While most buildings occupy a single cell (1x1), larger structures take up multiple cells:

Larger buildings have one entrance (BUILDING_ENTRY) – the remaining occupied cells are blocked and impassable. This changes pathfinding in the sector: runners must walk around large buildings.

Impact on Multi-Target actions: Larger buildings cost more time during actions like EXTORT, COLLECT, or ROUTE. Action duration is multiplied by the building’s largest footprint dimension – a 2x2 building takes twice as long as a 1x1.

Landmarks

There are also landmarks – special, non-rentable buildings permanently placed in certain sector types:

Landmarks are NPC-controlled locations. You cannot buy or rent them, but they are targets for raids, bribery, or jailbreaks.

Courtyards

Deep within the building blocks, away from any public street, lie courtyards – inner yards with no direct street access. You can only reach them through adjacent buildings, never directly from an avenue, street, or alley.

Why are courtyards important?

• Hidden operations: No street contact means fewer witnesses and lower detection risk. Ideal for hidden HQs, secret stashes, or covert meetings.
• Hard to raid: Attackers must first pass through a building to reach the courtyard — this gives defenders a tactical advantage.
• No vehicles: Courtyards are only accessible on foot. No quick escape, but also no quick attack.

Courtyards are generated automatically: any building cell with no orthogonal neighbor of a road type (avenue, street, alley) becomes a courtyard.

Contacts

You don’t control the city alone – you need contacts inside the institutions. Cops, bureaucrats, judges, black market dealers – everyone has their price.

How it works:

• You start with 2 contacts from different institutions (CorpSec, Compliance Bureau, District Admin, FOB, MedCore, Black Market)
• Each contact has a rank (LOW, MID, HIGH) that determines cost and effectiveness
• Scout ($500): Discovers a new random contact. More contacts = more options
• Bribe: Pay the bribe cost (2x daily rate), increase the contact’s loyalty, and reduce your federal heat (LOW: -1, MID: -2, HIGH: -3 points)
• After bribing, the contact has a 3-day cooldown before they can be used again

Costs scale with heat: The higher your federal heat, the more expensive contacts become (up to 2x at heat >= 75). Keep your heat low for better deals.

Loyalty: Each bribe increases loyalty (up to 100). Higher loyalty will unlock better effects in the future.

Fog of War

You don’t see the entire city. At the start you only have 5 nodes of visibility around your starting office. Everything else is hidden in fog.

Your runners reveal areas as they move or scout. The quality of revealed information depends on the runner’s INT attribute: a smart scout delivers detailed intel, a dull one sees only outlines.

AI Megacorps

The city doesn’t belong only to the players. 1 to 3 AI-controlled megacorporations occupy sectors and pursue their own objectives:

• Expansion — The corp spreads into adjacent sectors
• Crackdown — Private security forces massively increase heat
• Buyout Offers — The corp offers you money for your buildings. Accept or decline?

Megacorps are not passive scenery. They react to your behavior and can become both allies and enemies.

Traffic

Not every street is equally fast:

• Rush Hour (07:00–09:00, 17:00–19:00): Main streets are slowed. Runners need longer for movement actions.
• At night: Side streets are faster, but in Government sectors police checkpoint density increases considerably.

Plan your routes accordingly. A raid at 08:00 on a main street? Your runner is stuck in traffic while the police are already informed.

Vehicles: With a car your runner is ~2.5x faster on main streets and side streets — but alleys (ALLEY) and courtyards (COURTYARD) are too narrow or inaccessible for vehicles. Plan vehicle routes via main roads, not through backyards.